


I am the Fallen

by KnightRepentant



Series: Last Angel in Heaven [5]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 07:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11847000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnightRepentant/pseuds/KnightRepentant
Summary: MacCready must accept his past, to be freed from it.





	I am the Fallen

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Я — Падший](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14170524) by [Blacki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blacki/pseuds/Blacki)



16th June, 2288 A.D.

Rust particles blew against his face, a stinging wind that lashed his exposed skin and burned his throat. There was no horizon now, no sky and no sound but the gale’s hollow moan. If a sun existed in this nightmare, he could discern only a ragged orange glow, deep in the west, fighting against the smog. Where the clouds thinned, he made out the shattered husks of the Boston skyline. Towers gone to teeth of rust, old brick houses worn down almost to nothing. MacCready wrapped a neckerchief over his face, hefted his gun and set off.

               The quiet here was oppressive, looming at him whenever the wind died. He passed a line of ancient cars, their paint flayed off and their rusted frames beginning to collapse with age. The Charles River was little more than a slender, oily ribbon slithering through the city, stranded boats withered where they lay. Boston was no more a maze of soaring towers, he scrambled over collapsed walls and beneath archways of rust. MacCready twitched the rifle at every sound, every flicker of light brought by the wind. Sometimes it was just more masonry falling to rest, other times he swore he saw things moving within the smog.

               “S-Sam?” It was barely a whimper, a murmur he almost daren’t utter, but here he was alone in this hellscape, the last man in Boston. A ghoul lay dead outside the entrance to Goodneighbour. So decayed that it looked nearly skeletal, the creature was curled against the rusted door to the town. _God save me, I don’t wanna go in there_. But the moaning in the wind was growing louder, and he pressed on. Daisy was gone, but KL-E-0 wasn’t. But MacCready didn’t feel at all relieved by her presence. The Assaultron stood at her counter, motionless but active. He had to keep going, though, and crept past the shops. KL-E-0’s head turned to follow him, but still she said nothing.

               The Third Rail. The front was blown clean off, so MacCready picked his way over the rubble to the stairs. Sheltered from the ravages of the wind and time, the place seemed almost normal. Rust still floated in the fetid air beneath a lightless ceiling, but little else was out of place. Finally he could breathe, but there was still more to come. The back room, he knew that was where he had to go. The rifle shook in his unsteady grip. The door groaned under his hand, swinging open far easier than it would. There was the chair, the one he’d sat in when Winlock and Barnes had come calling. Sitting in it this time, however, was, “Lucy?” Grief swept over him at the sight of her, her lovely face, whole and alive.

               “Robbie,” Tears stained his cheeks as he took her hand tight in his,

               “I’m sorry, Luce. I’m sorry, I’m s-sorry, I’m…” The words spilled out of him, over and over, a flood, a torrent.

               “I know. I’m sorry too, sorry I can’t be with you taking on the world. But you’re trapped, Robbie, trapped in that metro station. Our son’s out in the light, babe, you should be too. Her hand on his cheek, gentle but firm, brought him to his feet,

               “You…you have to go now, don’t you?” His voice was thick, the words sticking in his throat,

               “You still have that little soldier I gave you, right?” He nodded, lips tight, “Then no, I don’t. But you should, this place isn’t safe.” For a moment her face changed, “there’s something else here with you, Robbie.” Then her smile returned, and she kissed his cheek, “See you around, soldier boy.” Lucy’s body shone with pure white light for an instant, and then MacCready was alone. He felt…empty, hollow inside, but in a good way. He felt lighter, taller. He scrubbed at his face and headed for the stairs.

               This was wrong, _I found Lucy, didn’t I? Heard what I needed to? Why is it still going?_ The wind still tore at the towers, the sky was still a maelstrom of swirling clouds. _There’s something else here with you_. Lucy’s words, full of fear, echoed in his head. But the square was deserted…wait. At the end of the street, a man leant against a wall. A long duster, a wide-brimmed hat, but something was off. The figure stood straight, _tall_ , _much too tall_. Beneath the hat lay…nothing. Just a roiling black fog, ash and dust swirling in silence. The thing flicked away the butt of a cigarette, which curled into dust before it hit the ground. The sun was pushed away as it glided to stand towering over him,

               “I am the Fallen.” The words hit MacCready like a speeding train, every hollow syllable was a vice pressing on his skull. Fingers curled ever tighter around the rifle,

               “I know Sam. I dunno what you are, but you’re not him.” The figure bent down, the abyss that festered where a face should have been seethed mere inches from him,

               “He is the Fallen.”

               “I don’t…”

               “He is not _for_ you.” The merest pinpricks of light winked to life within that black mass, “You are not worthy.” A crowd of voices clawed through the veil,

               “ _Never in a million years, MacCready…_ ”

“ _This is the sort you’re travelling with now?_ ”

               “ _Still killing people for caps, MacCready?_ ” The scorched ground offered no comfort. The rifle snapped up, finger to the trigger.  But the creature’s vicious backhanded swipe sent him sprawling to the dirt,

               “YOU ARE NOT WORTHY!” Exploding from its shoulders were two colossal wings. Every feather was of iron, a pitted blade slicing at the air. The lights in its face were large and round as coins now, “YOU ARE A KILLER, A BLUNT INSTRUMENT! UNWORTHY!” There was a mouth too, a gaping portal of searing light spewing hatred. The iron wings rang upon the air, holding the thing above him, “WE! ARE! THE FALLEN!” Wing-beats drove at him again and again. MacCready struggled to stand with iron lashing at his arms and head,

               “I know who you are! And I’m sick of listening to you!” And he leapt, arms reaching out, folding around the creature and at their impact the light of its eyes exploded forth to rip the entire world asunder.

               His throat and chest burned, a dull throbbing pain tinged with copper. Above him, bare branches swayed from the attentions of the wind, only to be blocked out by a much more welcome sight. A wide brimmed hat, with a beaming, if a little haggard, face beneath it. Eyes of stormy grey blinked slowly down at him,

               “Mack.” It wasn’t a statement, or a question, simply confirmation that he was still here, a comfort for them both. “Thought you’d left us for good. This spring is ten kinds of messed up, I got dragged on a freaky funhouse ride by some black ghost. You see her too?” The face of that _thing_ with the iron wings flashed across MacCready’s vision, he remembered its screams and the words it twisted into his gut like a knife. He focused on Sam’s ash-blackened face, _how do I tell you? I thought I knew what it was, that it was me, everything I hated about myself. But if you saw something too…was it real? What if I look into your eyes one morning and it’s not you looking back?_ No, no that was ridiculous, and MacCready rubbed at his eyes with one hand,

               “Maybe. Right now I feel like I just got kicked in the gut. Feel like I could sleep for two hundred years,” Sam laughed at that, and helped MacCready to stand,

               “Just be ready in case it ain’t all sunshine and rainbows when you wake up.” Their arms slid around one another’s waists, eyes meeting with ease,

               “I like my odds.”


End file.
